Bill Gates says cryptocurrencies have “caused deaths in a fairly direct way.” Maybe that’s a bit over the top, but the Reddit discussion, as excerpted on Ars Technica, is fairly nuanced: Bill Gates says cryptocurrencies have “caused deaths in a fairly direct way”
The Bitemaster winters in the breathtakingly beautiful Transbaikal where it’s so cold that the politicians keep their hands in the own pockets, where we have to light a fire to thaw out our words just to know what we’re saying, where we measure the ambient temperature in degrees Rankine because it feels warmer (today, it’s 450 degrees Rankine outside).
Though we’re a bit isolated, we do manage to keep up with the news from North America on our short wave radio, thanks to late-night “skip” propagation.
One figure who’s been in the news a lot lately is New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. He’s now in his second term. and here’s how we think he’s been doing:
So how does de Blasio’s report card look? We grade on a pass-fail system and give him a “pass.”
Following a blistering series of blog posts here at Biteme.ME, New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., has capitulated and agreed to stop taking campaign contributions from attorneys who have cases before him.
When reached for comment, Jerome Biteman, Executive Editor at Biteme Worldwide Media Holdings, said, “It’s about fucking time.”
See the ABA Journal article.
How the mighty have fallen. Joseph Lhota, who lost to Bill de Blasio in the 2013 mayoral election is now working as a day-laborer for the New York State MTA.
When asked where they located Lhota, Veronique Hakim, the agency’s managing director, said, “We just drove up to the local hardware store. Out front, there was the usual gaggle of people looking for per diem work. One of my staffers asked, ‘¿Quién tiene experiencia en el transporte?’ A well dressed man answered, ‘¡Tengo experiencia, señor!’
“We told him to get in the van,” Hakim continued. “He proceeded to open his backpack and pull out a pair of wing tips, an iPad, and an American Express Platinum card. We knew right away that he was just the kind of person we were looking for.”
Source: Group wants MTA boss Joe Lhota probed over lobbying | New York Post
President’s paying customers at his private clubs nominated to be ambassadors and serve in other high-profile federal government roles
Personally, I’m convinced that President Trump is the most integrity President in history. However, if I were looking to get a hearing with the prez on some important project, I’d buy a condo at Trump Tower, a membership at Mar-a-Lago, and treat him to an all-expenses-paid trip to Bimini to learn about their Muslim ban.
Source: Trump nominates some club members to plum government jobs
Remember when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron”? And then was forced to walk it back?
“He [Trump] loves his country. He puts America and Americans first. He’s smart. He demands results wherever he goes and he holds those around him accountable for whether they have done the job he has asked them to do.”
Hey, Rex: that was some serious groveling!
Now on to General John F. Kelly, current White House Chief of Staff. It had looked to us here in the Bitecastle like Kelly had brought some much-needed order to the chaotic Trump White House. Then the poor guy started hitting the Kool-aid, and hitting it hard.
In October 2017, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) criticized Trump for his phone call to the widow of a slain U.S. soldier, saying his remarks had been insensitive. A few days later, Kelly held a press briefing where he defended Trump’s phone call, which he had overheard, saying Trump “expressed his condolences in the best way that he could.” He harshly criticized Wilson, calling her “the empty barrel that makes the most noise” and stating that in a 2015 speech she had “stood up” to inappropriately claim credit for securing federal funding for an FBI building in her district. Video of her 2015 speech showed his description to be inaccurate. [Wikipedia]
Then Kelly took his second swig:
In an October 2017 interview with Laura Ingraham, Kelly claimed that “the lack of ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
. . . Two historians of the Civil War described Kelly’s remarks as ignorant, a misuse of history reminiscent of Lost Cause mythology, and they broadly reject that a failure to compromise led to the war, noting that a number of compromises on slavery were made in the lead-up to the war. [Wikipedia]
Paul Vixie (@paulvixie) is one of the geniuses behind the Internet, He recently opined on Twitter:
centrists, who by def’n decide elections, want gov’t to ensure equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. right to fairness, not aid.
He then linked to a Bernie Sanders tweet.
I think Vixie raises a legitimate question: whether we should judge “fairness” by outcome or opportunity.
I was wondering when this would happen. Also wondering if the jack-booted-thugs of the government will come to take away their guns.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/rises-lgbtq-gun-group-hits-firing-line-ny-article-1.3582624
I don’t know where the quote at the top of this post comes from, but I do know that the police in Orlando FL don’t know Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze from methamphetamine.
The City of Orlando paid $37,500 to a man to settle a lawsuit after police officers arrested him for what they thought was meth but actually was glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Cpl. Shelby Riggs-Hopkins pulled Daniel Rushing over after seeing him fail to come to a full stop when pulling out of a 7-Eleven store. She then used one of those “presumptive” field-test kits to determine that the flakes on the floor of Rushing’s car were meth, and took him to jail.
Fortunately, Rushing was able to post bail, and eventually the Florida Department of Law Enforcement did a more thorough test and determined that the substance in his car was sugar from a doughnut.
The scary part is that many people plead guilty based solely on the field test, and the substances are never re-tested by a crime lab. Yikes!
Source: Man arrested after cops mistook doughnut glaze for meth gets $37,500 from Orlando – Orlando Sentinel
Further reading on drug analysis: http://www.ncids.com/forensic/drugs/drugs.shtml
In justifying his decision to let the movie mogul walk, the New York DA conflated two sex statutes.
According to media reports, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance had the goods on sleazy Harvey Weinstein (NOT Harvey Fierstein) since 2015, but chose not to prosecute.
We know that a $10,000 campaign donation from a Weinstein lawyer didn’t influence Vance because
Be sure to read the Daily Beast article: Is This the Real Reason Cy Vance Didn’t Prosecute Harvey Weinstein?
And then peruse the Bitemaster’s previous posts on Cy Vance.